Horizontal Bullying in Nursing - Essay Example

? Horizontal Bullying Horizontal Bullying Introduction A thorough research represents various violent activities taking place in nursing workplace, these include: horizontal bullying, verbal and non verbal attacks, violence that is horizontal and lateral in nature and anger. Such actions and activities take place at different levels within the profession of nursing; these activities are experienced at the level of nurse to nurse, physician to nurse, nurse to physician and patient to nurse. Horizontal bullying is generally referred to as violent behavior of one worker with another worker working on the same hierarchical level or working within the same position (Hajizadeh, 2012). For example: in he case of nursing, horizontal bullying is referred to as one nurse treating another nurse in a violent manner. Bullying can be verbal in nature; this takes place when the receiver of a message interprets the message to be harsh and aggressive in nature. Ample amount of research has been conducted in the field of nursing in the nation of Australia regarding the subject of violence and bullying, researchers in these nations denotes workplace aggression with the term bullying (Johnson, 2009). The term bullying comprises of three elements, firstly an act is referred to as bullying in nature only when the person being treated feels that the act was bullying like and the act does not depends on the intention of the person who has conducted the act. Secondly, if an act needs to be referred to as bullying, it should negatively impact the victim. Lastly, an act is regarded as bullying when the same act is continuously carried out even knowing that the act is negative affecting the victim. Bullying can arise at different levels such as the supervisor, the subordinates or coworkers can all indulge in the act of bullying. Body Definition The term horizontal bullying is used when aggressive behavior takes place between employees that work together and have the same amount of power according to their position within the organization. For example: one manager bullying another manager and one nurse bullying another nurse. Farrell states that horizontal bullying takes places when one is continuously exhibiting behaviors with the intent to degrade, take control or diminish another individual and these behaviors may cause issues for the heath of the person who is being bullied (Vessey, 2010). Kind Horizontal bullying can be of both physical and vocal in nature and in the field of nursing, the prevalence of verbal bullying is more witnessed. Farrell states that verbal horizontal bullying consists of any kind of ill treatment that is verbal in nature and this kind of treatment makes the victim feels that he has been attacked either in personal or professional manner and the victim might experience humiliation (Vessey, 2010). This kind of treatment can take both overt and covert forms, researchers state that the highest percentage of communication that arises is nonverbal in nature and this causes ambiguity and may have much more impact on an individual than attacks that are overt in nature. Overt bullying and covert bullying can take several forms, over bullying may include criticizing, shouting and name calling for another individual and covert bullying may consist of ignorance, whining and sarcastic behavior against another subject (Hutchinson, 2010). Intention The intention that one nurse has for attacking another nurse by finding faults in them and their working and by complaining behind their back is to conduct an attack, ensure that a coworker is devalued and punished in the organization and to make him/her look bad in the eyes of others (Ferns, 2009). Several times the nurse who conducts the act of horizontal bullying is not conducting the act intentionally and the reason for conducting the act provided by them is because they feel that they are maintaining high standards of quality care by their actions. Nursing is a profession that is based upon the concept of caring and in such a profession, behaviors such as horizontal bullying are not acceptable. It is very easy to uncover an act of horizontal bullying and once the act is uncovered, then the damages of such an act are realized. Still policy makers and those within the institution do not try to uncover such behaviors, but for the sake of the survival of the profession it is necessary to uncover and stop such activities. Existence Garling conducted a study on different health care settings and figured out that, people working in these setting behave with each other in a disrespectful manner, and work against the code of conduct set by the organization (Cleary, 2010). Hader conducted a survey on those who read Nursing Management, the respondents state that they have witnessed and even experienced angry behavior against them, criticism that is severe in nature, bullying and harassment in their working facilities (Cleary, 2010). Simons reports a study according to which 65% of the registered nurses who took part in a research reported that ample amount of horizontal bullying and similar activities take place within their working areas (Vessey, 2010). Granny reports that ? of those nurses who are practicing in areas where critical care needs to be provided; those nurses experience horizontal bullying like activities (Vessey, 2010). These researches show that several hospital facilities have hired nurses who continuously behave in an unacceptable manner, it is very hard to report all activities as several activities are covert in nature. According to Stanley, bullying studies concentrated on settings where individuals gain psychological treatment show that bullying rates within these organizations are quite high (Vessey, 2010). According to Johnson two researches conducted on the topic of horizontal bullying in the field of nursing in Australia showed that such activities existed and 50% to 57% of the participants experienced such activities (Johnson, 2009). McMillan states that out of every three nurses, one of them wishes to quit her/his work because of the existence of horizontal bullying (Vessey, 2010). Farrell states that in a study conducted on nurses, 30% of the nurses reported being subjected to activities such as bullying and aggressive behavior on a day to day basis (Vessey, 2010). Impact Hostility in work environment leads to negative impact on the over all organizational level as well as the individual level, Berkey Suggests that due to vocal violence morale and job satisfaction is decreased and the work environment becomes very hostile (Lemelin, 2009). Cook states that staff that has experienced horizontal bullying have reported decline in mental relaxation and their wellbeing at work declines and this leads to increase in loss of trust, support from others and self esteem (Pines, 2012). Those individual nurses who have experienced horizontal violence within workplace experience both psychological as well as physical issues (Yldrm, 2009). For example: when an individual experiences stress due to horizontal bullying he experiences issues such as arthritis and asthma. It is very hard to predict the emotional issues that are experienced by victims, certain members who have experienced horizontal bullying state that they experience loss of sleep and increase in anxiety level due to such activities. A study conducted within Australia during the period of 1999, showed that nurses who are victimized by the act of horizontal bullying take more than 50 days of leave from week each year (Lim, 2011). A study conducted with the area of Australia showed that nurses who experience horizontal bullying like activities reported decrease in productivity by 25% and 27% of the nursing participants stated that they lost their ability to carry out their everyday work (Lim, 2011). Conclusion Horizontal bullying is referred to aggressive and bullying like activities conducted by one nurse towards another nurse, horizontal bullying can be conducted in both over and covert form, the most problematic kind of horizontal bullying is covert and verbal form of bullying. Horizontal bullying is increases day by day and needs to be countered; it is negatively impacting the emotional and the physical heath of the nursing staff which is causing problems on organizational as well as individual level. References Cleary, M., Hunt, G. E., & Horsfall, J. (April 01, 2010). Identifying and addressing bullying in nursing. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 31, 5, 331-335. Ferns, T., & Meerabeau, E. (December 01, 2009). Reporting behaviours of nursing students who have experienced verbal abuse. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 65, 12, 2678-2688. Hajizadeh, M., Connelly, L. B., & Butler, J. R. G. (December 01, 2012). Health policy and horizontal inequities of health-care utilization in Australia: 1983-2005. Applied Economics Letters, 19, 18, 1765-1775. Hutchinson, M., Vickers, M. H., Wilkes, L., & Jackson, D. (August 01, 2010). A typology of bullying behaviours: The experiences of Australian nurses. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 19, 2319-2328. Johnson, S. L. (March 01, 2009). Review Article: International perspectives on workplace bullying among nurses: a review. International Nursing Review, 56, 1, 34-40. Lemelin, L., Bonin, J. P., & Duquette, A. (January 01, 2009). Workplace violence reported by Canadian nurses. The Canadian Journal of Nursing Research = Revue Canadienne De Recherche En Sciences Infirmie?res, 41, 3, 152-67. Lim, J. J. C., Lee, J., Xiao, Z., & Atwater, L. (2011). A cross-cultural comparison and examination of workplace bullying in Singapore and the United States. University of Houston. Pines, E. W., Rauschhuber, M. L., Norgan, G. H., Cook, J. D., Canchola, L., Richardson, C., & Jones, M. E. (July 01, 2012). Stress resiliency, psychological empowerment and conflict management styles among baccalaureate nursing students. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 68, 7, 1482-1493. Vessey, J. A., Demarco, R., & DiFazio, R. (January 01, 2010). Bullying, harassment, and horizontal violence in the nursing workforce: the state of the science. Annual Review of Nursing Research, 28, 133-57. Yldrm, D. (January 01, 2009). Bullying among nurses and its effects. International Nursing Review International Council of Nurses, 56, 4, 504-511. Read More